Category Archives: News

Kenya is on course to reduce the effects of climate change, the Government has said. Environment Cabinet Secretary Judi Wakhungu listed banning of plastic bags, planned restoration of 5.1 hectares of land under forest and promotion of renewable energy as some of the measures the Government had taken to reduce carbon emissions.

“The Government is undertaking these measures, jointly with the private sector, to help communities cope with the effects of climate change while developing a low carbon infrastructure,” Prof Wakhungu said Wednesday.

Through Gazette Notice 2356, the ministry proscribed the manufacture, use and importation of plastics bags. The ban was however met with uproar, especially from manufacturers. This was the third attempt by Kenya, since 2005, to ban the use of polythene bags below 30 micron.

“For a long time, the country suffered greatly from the negative effects of plastic bags, which have clogged drains and rivers and contributed to floods in different parts of the country,” Wakhungu said. “Floods have killed people, marine life as well as domestic animals. They are also the breeding grounds for malaria-causing mosquitoes.” A recent report by the World Economic Forum noted that unless decisive measures were taken, there would be more plastic bags in the ocean than fish by 2050.

“The 5.1 million hectares of land we have resolved to commit to forest is nearly nine per cent of Kenya’s total land mass and makes us the first African country to take such a step,” the CS said. Through this initiative, Kenya is now the 13th African country to commit to bringing over 46 million hectares of land under forests by 2030.

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Originally published on the Standard media website

Launched in 2015 by Imran Khan, Chairman of Pakistan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf party, the Billion Tree Tsunami aims to turn the tide on land degradation and loss in the mountainous, formerly forested KPK province in the Hindu Kush mountain range. The campaign simultaneously helped KPK province fulfil its 348,400 hectare commitment to the Bonn Challenge – a global effortto bring 150 million hectares of deforested and degraded land into restoration by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. This marks the first Bonn Challenge pledge to reach its restoration goal.

“The project is naturally restoring a previously deforested landscape, which will assist in meeting present and future needs and offers multiple benefits for climate adaptation and mitigation in a very climate-vulnerable province,” says Muhammad Tehmasip, Project Director of the Billion Tree Tsunami.

The project has achieved its restoration target through a combination of protected natural regeneration (60%) and planned afforestation (40%). In addition, it has established 13,000 private tree nurseries, which have already boosted local incomes, generated thousands of green jobs, and empowered unemployed youth and women in the province.

“IUCN congratulates the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on reaching this momentous milestone. The Billion Tree Tsunami initiative is a true conservation success story, one that further demonstrates Pakistan’s leadership role in the international restoration effort and continued commitment to the Bonn Challenge,” says Inger Andersen, Director General of IUCN.

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Originally published on the IUCN website.

What most people probably don’t know is that Ethiopia has made significant progress during the last 20 years in restoring its degraded lands and improving its food and water security. According to Belgian and Ethiopian researchers,” Northern Ethiopia is now greener than it has ever been during the last 145 years,” and “human investments have overridden the impacts of climate change.”

So what happened?

A new documentary, Ethiopia Rising: Red Terror to Green Revolution, co-funded by WRI and made by award-winning UK filmmaker Mark Dodd, tells the story of how Ethiopia’s people restored vast areas of degraded land to productivity. Their story offers inspiration for other countries facing degraded soils, famine and climate change.

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Originally published on the WRI website

Malawi plans to spend about $385 million by 2030 to plant trees and restore other degraded land, in an effort to reverse rampant forest losses in the country, forestry officials said this week.

The area set to be rehabilitated covers 4.5 million hectares – nearly half of the country’s total land area, according to Tangu Isabel Tumeo, the principal forestry officer in the country’s Department of Forestry.

Altogether the country has lost 7.8 million hectares of trees since the 1980s, according to government figures.

The ambitious forest restoration initiative is part of the country’s commitment to the Bonn Challenge, agreed by nations in Germany in 2011. That effort calls for the restoration of 350 million hectares of degraded land worldwide by 2030.

African nations have pledged to provide 100 million hectares of reforestation toward that target.

In Malawi, the government aims to improve the protection and management of 1 million hectares of natural forests and plantations by 2020 and 2 million hectares by 2030 and restore 500,000 hectares of deforested or degraded forest by 2030. It also aims to plant 20 million trees along rivers and streams by 2020, Tumeo said.

The government also wants to see 50 percent of the country’s crop land planted to at least 10 percent trees by 2020, with 80 percent planted in that way by 2030, she said.

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Originally published on the News Trust Organization website.

A 2016 study in the Nature journal showed that carbon sequestered by trees on agricultural land could be more than four times higher than previously thought. The research was carried out by a team of scientists from several organizations, including CIAT.

Between 2000 and 2010, tree cover on agricultural land increased by 3 percent globally, resulting in a 4.6 percent increase in biomass carbon. Yet while the importance of carbon stored and sequestered by forests is widely recognized and land cover changes well monitored – see for example Terra-i – carbon stored by trees on agricultural land needs to be better measured.

The benefits of increasing tree cover on agricultural land go far beyond carbon sequestration. Trees increase soil organic matter and improve soil health, making farms more resilient to climate extremes. They also help protect soils from erosion, and tree products such as fruits and nuts contribute to food security, incomes, and more diverse diets.

Since trees stay in the soil for many years, their biomass contributes to a build-up of carbon over the long term. Growing more trees on farmland could be a significant route to increasing carbon sequestration, above and below ground.

Originally published on the CIAT website.

More people, less erosion – Ethiopia’s Tigray region demonstrates that this can be a reality: They will take home the Gold Future Policy Award 2017, beating 26 other nominated policies to the prize. Also known as “Oscar for Best Policies”, the Future Policy Award highlights the world’s best policies that combat desertification and land degradation this year.

With unique collective action, voluntary labour and the involvement of the youth, people of Tigray are restoring land on a massive scale. As a result, erosion has decreased significantly, groundwater levels are recharged, and the uptake of sustainable agricultural practices made a significant contribution to food self-sufficiency and economic growth.

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Originally published on the World Future Council Website.